


Once Upon a Pack

by LitGal



Series: A Pair of Assholes [6]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: BAMF Stiles, Derek Hale Deserves Nice Things, M/M, Magical Stiles Stilinski, Pack Dynamics, Pack Feels, Pack Politics, Peter Hale Deserves Nice Things, Scott McCall tries his best
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-19
Updated: 2021-03-27
Packaged: 2021-03-28 14:54:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 17,592
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30141258
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LitGal/pseuds/LitGal
Summary: Stiles and Peter are back in California and both want to unify the pack and prepare for the counterattack they suspect is coming. Marie Argent might have lost her American soldiers--and many of her French ones as well--but no Argent has ever shown an abundance of common sense when faced with a supernatural threat.  But bringing the pack together means dealing with old hurts and resentments that have been left to fester for years.  For two self-proclaimed assholes, personal dynamics are much more terrifying than Argents.
Relationships: Peter Hale/Stiles Stilinski
Series: A Pair of Assholes [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2139276
Comments: 133
Kudos: 305





	1. Chapter 1

Stiles pulled his Jeep up into the driveway of a fancy's banish style home in a sea of other fancy Spanish style homes. Stiles was just relieved to see Peter in the front yard because it was hard to distinguish one house from another. If Stiles were still sixteen, he would've been tempted to switch the house numbers around and watch confused people try and their keys on the wrong door because they couldn't recognize their house from the neighbors. 

Hell, Stiles was tempted to do that now. 

He might, except he was never the most physically graceful person in history, and this was the sort of place where they had neighborhood watches and he would definitely get caught. And talking Scott into doing it for him would probably be an asshole move, not that Stiles was against being an asshole, but maybe he shouldn't drag Scott into that. 

Stiles got out of the jeep, and immediately Peter smiled as Stiles walked up the drive. “Fancy new place, you've got here, Peter.”

“You do know how I like my creature comforts. Would you like the grand tour?”

“On a place this size, it's going to be grand.” Stiles frowned at the bright red envelope in Peter’s hand. “Problem?”

Peter followed Stiles’s gaze and laughed, which was totally unfair. When Celeste put things into red envelopes, it meant that she was warning him about possible life ending consequences if he screwed the spell up. She found color coding the spells they were working on and categorizing them into envelopes worked best. Maybe Stiles wasn’t up to actual helping-the-pack magic yet, but he was doing enough to require a few magical warnings.

“Not at all,” Peter assured him. “This is from the home owner’s association. They have chosen to interpret the HOA rules and the most ridiculous manner possible. They are offended that while moving I employed the use of moving trucks as commercial vehicles.”

Stiles frowned and ran that through the logic circuits in his brain a second time, but it still didn’t make sense. “How else are you supposed to move? I'm pretty sure that slave boys carrying household goods on litters is a little out of the question.”

“They insist that the prohibition on having commercial vehicles parked within the association means that slave boys would be preferable to moving trucks, although they did not phrase it quite so colorfully.” Peter stepped aside to allow Stiles into the house. The doors were almost two stories call with embedded iron work and runes worked into the wood carvings. Ostentatious and practical.

“Have you warned them you're a lawyer?”

“I did, but you understand better than most that a person being a lawyer is not the same as being an excellent lawyer. I might not have mentioned the latter.”

“Then they’re idiots because any lawyer who could afford a multimillion dollar home has to be an excellent lawyer. And sadly, I'm pretty sure it wouldn't even take a decent lawyer to get that fine overturned. A mediocre lawyer with common sense could do that.” Stiles stepped across the marble floor feeling a little out of place. He also wondered what would happen if the pack was in beta shift and they tried running across the tile. He could imagine them all slipping and sliding like graceless dogs before crashing into Peter’s walls.

“That’s the problem with living within an HOA in the suburbs. People assume that their problems are somehow significant ones, when in reality they are simply underemployed and overfunded. They will learn.” Peter closed the front door and turned to face Stiles with an utterly sadistic smile.

“I feel like a bad person because I'm really looking forward to them getting a legal slap down.”

Peter rested his hand at the small Stiles’s back and ushered him into the… lobby? Foyer? Obnoxiously large entry? “I assure you that doesn't make you a bad person; it makes you justifiably annoyed at idiocy. Idiocy should always be punished.” Peter’s voice turned particularly harsh on the last sentence.

Stiles frowned, feeling like there might be a dig for Scott somewhere in there, and Scott was having a hard enough time without Peter poking him. Scott was even more freaked out than Derek at the idea of having Peter back in California on a permanent basis. 

And Stiles got it. 

Peter had done Scott wrong. Stiles could not pretend that the whole involuntary biting thing was okay in any way shape or form, because it wasn't. And knowing that Peter was going to be pack adjacent and potentially could be one of the pack alphas was freaking Scott out a little. He kept talking about how he had tried to kill Peter and how Peter wouldn't forgive him for that, which was ironic because Stiles was the one who had thrown the Molotov cocktail, and Peter was weirdly proud of him for taking a stand. He had also expressed his appreciation that Stiles had waited until after he had torn out Kate's throat. Too bad she hadn't stayed dead.

Stiles focused on the house instead of the pack drama. Where their townhouse had been decorated in modern tones of gray and white with dark wood accents, this place was far more traditional. Rich walnut trim would was accented with burgundy and taupe. An antique grandfather clock stood in the front entry opposite from an ornate marble-topped console table where Peter had tossed his keys. The wide staircase curved up to a second floor balcony of sorts that ran along the front room and off that balcony doors stood open so Stiles caught a glimpse of bedrooms. Lots of bedrooms.

“Are you planning on having a horde of lawyers move in with you?” Stiles wouldn't be surprised if Richard moved in because Richard pretty much worshiped the ground Peter walked on. However, he had assumed that even if Susan became a lawyer, she would want some space. Stiles was not entirely convinced she would be a werewolf when she fully turned. She had a bit of a sadistic jaguar cruelty to her. Luckily for the rest of the world, she had chosen to use the law to attack her enemies instead of fire.

“It's just the two of us and Celeste,” Peter said. “But I had assumed that while you finish your degree in Sacramento, that pack members would use the opportunity to visit and perhaps get to know me away from the toxicity of Beacon Hills.”

“Aww. Are you being thoughtful?”

Peter glared at him, and Stiles laughed. 

But the mirth faded as he considered the reason for their cross-country transfer. Stiles had loved his old school, but now everything was different, and his pack needed him. They might not know it yet, but they needed Peter too. 

Derek still struggled to get in touch with his wolf, and the more he loosened the pack bonds, the more the betas were painfully aware of the psychological wounds Derek carried. Penny was the only one who handled that well. When Derek would get into one of his dark moods that stained every one of his bonds, she would come over and sit in the loft’s living room and silently grade papers and create lessons while he sat in the shadow. 

At one point in his life, Stiles had nursed one or two fantasies about Derek Hale, but the more he got to know Derek, the more he could see that what Derek needed was someone who had the ability to give him space to sort out his own feelings. Derek would always love Stiles, but that inappropriate edge of violence that marked their early relationship had really been Derek begging for enough space to sort out his own thoughts. Unfortunately, Derek and words had a difficult relationship. The one had an inability to use the other.

Stiles remembered when he and Derek had been trying to get into the police station to get Isaac out, and Derek had promised that he could distract Tara without going all werewolf. Instead of trusting that, Stiles had demanded that Derek demonstrate. He had asked a rape victim to practice using his own looks to manipulate someone else. That was almost worse than asking Derek to do the actual distracting. Stiles had some guilt over that.

Long story short, the pack needed another alpha, and Peter was the only one around to fill the role. More importantly, he had turned into a damn good alpha in the last three years. Being around people who expected him to be in-control and reasonable had sanded the lingering resentments and feral edge. Stiles wrapped his hands around Peter's arm. “I love that you bought something big enough for the pack. I say we have a housewarming party.”

Peter rolled his eyes. “Glorious. Just what I want, a gaggle of adolescents drinking me out of house and home.” Despite his words, the bond hummed contentedly.

Stiles poked Peter in the side. “Don't be like that. You know as well, as I do that it's important that we pull together before the next shoe drops.”

Peter was always so much better than Derek and Scott at reading Stiles his mood because he recognized the fear in Stiles’s voice. He caught Stiles up in an embrace and held him tight. “There will not be another shoe that drops. The Argents are done in America. You can put them out of your mind. Don't even think about them.”

The words opened up a dam in Stiles’s emotions. Guilt and grief and shame and anger poured through the breach. “Was it my fault? Did the matriarch kill all of those people because I put them on the spot?”

“No,” Peter said so firmly that Stiles could almost believe him. Peter guided him towards and overstuffed couch that turned out to be scary comfortable. Peter held him close with his left arm and tangled their fingers together with his other hand. “You listen to me, you did nothing wrong. The Argents violated their code and violated a code so fundamental to the supernatural way of life that there would be consequences. The fact that the Argents chose this solution over any other is on them.”

Stiles frowned as his brain caught on one phrase. “What code fundamental to the supernatural way of life?”

Peter sighed. “You would pick up on that.”

“What are you talking about?” Stiles pulled away from Peter’s embrace and scooted around so that he could look into Peter's face as he wrapped his awareness around their bond, but Peter held his hand tightly, maintaining that contact. Peter was definitely hiding something, and as much as Stiles loved Peter, there was this little part of him that got exceptionally nervous when Peter hid things. Especially when one of Peter's first requests of Stiles as a pack which was to help him turn a new beta as scary as Susan. She might be old, but she was mean old. Nothing scared Stiles quite as much as mean old. They'd had a lot of time to work out all the nuances of how to do vicious really, really well.

They were the opposite of teenagers who flailed around and tried to be vicious but actually did more damage to each other when they were trying to be nice. Pathetic, but weirdly true. However Susan, that was one woman who knew exactly what direction to aim if she wanted to do maximum damage. Give her claws, and Stiles would pretty much not want to have her in his pack, which was ironic because she was going to be a beta in his pack.

Peter sighed. “There are things in the supernatural world which I'm not entirely sure that even Derek knows, but most wolves who are destined to be alphas are trained in them.”

“Well, then you'd better get to training Derek,” Stiles said, masterfully avoiding the fact that Scott had been the primary alpha and if there were something alpha-worthy Peter should have been teaching him. But asking Peter to teach Scott was going too far, even for Stiles, and Stiles was a master of too far.

“At some point I shall have to.” Peter turned their joined hands so that his is on the bottom and then he let his fingernails grow long and thick. “What is the difference between the claws of an alpha and those of a beta?”

“Alpha claws are longer. Of course, your claws are not as long now as when you went on your whole crazy spree. Turns out that crazy, and feral makes for one seriously bulked up werewolf.” Stiles tightened his hold on Peter's hand. If Peter was trying to scare him, he had lost that fight a long time ago. In fact, he had pretty much lost that fight when he had asked for permission to turn Stiles and then respected Stiles’s decision to stay human. It was hard to convince someone that you were a monster when you listen to informed consent.

“If I put these claws into your neck, what could I do that a beta could not?”

“Scramble my memories. And if you do that,” Stiles said sharply, “I will make you the sorriest werewolf who ever lived. I don't need to have all my memories to remember to hold a grudge.”

Peter gave him a fond smile. “Trust me, I am aware of that. In fact, I appear to hold a grudge against my sister even though I don't have the memories of why.”

“I noticed. So why are we talking about werewolf claws?”

Peter studied Stiles for a second. “What ability do vampires possess that would erase memories?”

“Compulsion,” Stiles answered quickly. That was an easy one. Vampire power of compulsion scared Stiles way more than fangs.

“And how would fey erase memories?”

“The Wild Hunt. I'm pretty sure you and I know that one intimately.” Stiles was about to make another offhanded comment, when his brain caught the pattern that Peter was alluding to. “Are you saying that every form of supernatural creature has a way to erase memories?”

“One that Scott is entirely too slow to use, which has caused a number of problems. I understand that Alpha Ito offered to teach him to use his claws and he refused outright.”

“Okay, if you are suggesting that erasing people's memories is like a go-to when people figure out about the supernatural, I'm going to call you a raging asshole, which is one step up from the normal asshole I normally call you.”

Peter sighed. “Stiles, what is the source of magic?”

“Telluric currents and ley lines.”

“No, that is the flow of magic, the river. What is the source of that river? What is the iceberg from which the water originally flows?”

Stiles frowned. “Nothing I have ever read in any the grimoires suggests there is some grand source of magic. Celeste certainly hasn't said anything.”

“I do not know whether Celeste is aware or not. If she is, she will likely wait for me to broach the subject because it is so dangerous, especially for someone who is at the center of so much supernatural noise.” The way Peter said the last word made it very clear that it was something important, something far more significant than one of the words Stiles would've chosen like supernatural disasters or supernatural massacres. But Stiles couldn't figure out why noise would be so significant.

“What are you talking about?”

Peter tightened his grip on Stiles’s hand. “Werewolves believe that we come from old gods. Leto enjoyed taking the form of a wolf and blessed her most sacred followers with the ability to shift into that form to follow her. Zeus was incensed when a king attempted to feed him human meat.”

Stiles finished that story. “He cursed King Lycaon and all of his sons to become wolves. Werewolf religion 101.”

“Certainly in the West,” Peter said with a smile. “There are other religions more popular in other parts of the world. In Europe many looked to Fenris, one of the sons of Loki. In the East, there are a number of werewolf origin stories, many related to the kitsune or kurtadam.”

“And?” Stiles was usually very good at making connections between random facts, but either his brain needed more caffeine or Peter had left a few details out.

“And they are all real. Magic comes from gods, old ones.”

“Okay, but what does the origin of magic and old, dead gods have to do with noise?”

“They aren’t dead,” Peter said softly. “They sleep, and it is the responsibility of the supernatural world to ensure they remain asleep. If they wake, then the world will return to another age of mythology where gods manipulate the lives of mortals and rape and pillage without concern for who they hurt. People might enjoy reading the story of Odysseus, but do you think Odysseus enjoyed living it? And he was a favorite. The lives of other mortals were infinitely more difficult. So the supernatural world works very hard to keep things quiet.” Peter nearly whispered the last word.

Stiles stared at him in horror, searching for some sign that Peter was playing the world's most elaborate and pointless practical joke. He wasn't.

Peter untangled their fingers and smoothed the fabric of his suit pants, which was always a sign that he was intensely uncomfortable with what he was saying. But despite that discomfort, Stiles could feel the truth shining through their bond. “Old gods?”

Peter nodded. Stiles ran a hand through his hair and tried to sort out how he felt about that. He'd read the mythology. He liked the stories, but desperately did not want to live in any world that resembled any of them. The gods were constantly spawning monsters and women were raped about every other page. Worse, the stories would describe the rape in weirdly consensual terms like she chose to sleep with Zeus when he had disguised himself as the woman's husband. That was not a choice. That was straight up rape.

“What does this have to do with the Argents?”

“They had grown too large. There were too many human minds thinking about the same supernatural creature, which ran the risk of waking that creatures associated that god.”

Stiles eyes grew wide with shock. “They were thinking about you.”

Peter nodded. I filed a number of lawsuits naming every Argent I could identify as accessories to my family's murder, targeting them in a storm of wrongful death lawsuits. Most of those cases would've been thrown out because I could not prove a direct line of support between the individual and Kate Argent, but a few of them would have gone to trial. I suspect I am from either Leto’s line or Fenris’s, and having so many Argents thinking about me at once created a single sound that risked cutting through the general din of humanity to wake one of them.

Stiles frowned, you aren't blaming yourself for the fact that Argents are dicks that killed their own guys are you? And worse, used a weird suicide cult story to cover up the murder. That was really shitty. It's one thing to die in this war, but to have your name forever associated with that kind of crazy? That hurts every one of those men and women's parents and spouses and children and friends. All of them are going to spend the rest of their lives wondering why they didn't notice the crazy. That is all on the Argents. And I'm the one who started the legal war.” Stiles brain spun as he considered a million new possibilities.

Peter sent a sharp bolt of aggravation down the bond. It was his version of a kick in the pants, and it always made Stiles’s chest ache. “Neither you nor I triggered what they did. And if I did feel responsibility for the deaths, I would only feel pride at having taken out so much trash at once, but no, I do not give myself the credit. The old ones left guardians, and one visited the Argents and told them that either they had to quiet the thoughts of their people or they would face the Wild Hunt.”

“Okay, is one of the victims of the Wild Hunt, I will say that I was super unimpressed. But I choose to be remembered as a crazy suicide cult member. It wasn't like being in that train station was painful.”

“No, simply boring. And sometimes a boring afterlife is preferable to the alternative.” Peter's expression twisted into a grimace and the bond was oddly empty. Stiles had the feeling there was more than one thing he was not understanding because Peter had blocked the bond.

“So, are you suggesting that the Argent problem has been solved by one of these guardians and that the biggest thing we have to worry about is your cranky HOA?”

Peter leaned back and now the bond sang of weariness. “I suspect we have far greater problems than that. I have no idea how to repair the wounds in this pack, and I believe that should take precedence over other concerns for the moment. But I do not want you worrying about the Argents when forces far more powerful than you or I have already ended that threat.”

Stiles squinted as he thought about the pieces on the board. “They didn't end the threat as much as they did ensure that the threat couldn't come at us with an army. And I'm very grateful for that because I was getting very fed up with Monroe's army. However, Marie could still send a small team after us.”

“And why would she bother? Her power bases in Europe.” Peter sounded very dismissive of the concern, which meant that the faker understood the danger perfectly well and was trying to convince Stiles that he didn’t have to worry. Giant overprotective worry-wolf.

“We completely humiliated her family. Do you really think she’s going to drop it?”

Peter took his hand again. “All the more reason for us to settle the pack bonds now. Derek and I will always have different connections to different members of the pack, but we need to ensure that as much of the pack is integrated as possible. Certain individuals like Scott and Susan will always be joined through only one alpha, but the pack can maintain the overall bonds as long as most are able to acknowledge us both, and as long as both of us can work together.”

Peter took a long breath, and Stiles could feel the discomfort. He felt bad that life had conspired to pull Peter back to the one place he had tried so hard to get away from. But there was nothing that a puppy pile couldn't solve, even if it was a puppy pile of two. 

Stiles toed his shoes off and then pulled his feet up under him as he settled in against Peter’s side. “We'll work it out,” he promised. Peter put an arm around Stiles and pulled him closer before resting his cheek on the top of Stiles’s head. I do hope so. And I hope you and I can continue to have a quiet life. I quite enjoy being free to practice the law and nag you about being mindful of your safety around disreputable humans.”

“We’ll make it work,” Stiles promised. “And on that note, Spencer called. He is hooking me up with the local FBI office for an internship program. So it turns out I might not have shot myself in the foot with the FBI. At least not metaphorically. Obviously, I did get myself shot in the foot literally, and apparently the agents enjoy telling that story around the water cooler.”

Peter tightened his hold on Stiles, but that was exactly what Stiles had intended. Any reference to Stiles getting bodily hurt turned up Peter's overprotective instincts and completely distracted him. “Since Derek went out of his way to save you, he is worth saving. And if we want this, we are certainly powerful and smart enough to make this work.”

“Oh, we definitely can. We can make this work.” Stiles really hoped he was telling the truth


	2. Chapter 2

Stiles pulled his Jeep into the driveway of Peter's McMansion. It was weird to think that he was going to be driving everywhere again after living in a walkable neighborhood in Virginia. But between the spread out places he needed to get to and the lack of good quality public transportation, Stiles needed to get used to being a driver again. And part of him really enjoyed having Roscoe back in his life.

Maybe he was too emotionally attached to a Jeep, but he felt a connection to his mother when he drove her jeep. And it was a lot more fun to drive now that his dad and Derek had bonded over essentially rebuilding the entire engine. Stiles was almost sure that there was no duct tape to be found under the hood, which was a huge change. Hopefully if Stiles got called out to any pack emergencies, he wouldn't be stranded in the forest somewhere between Sacramento and Beacon Hills trying to get AAA to come give him a jump.

Looking back, he had fond memories of the time Roscoe had broken down in the middle of Mexico when they'd been trying to rescue Derek, but at the time that had been slightly terrifying. Amazingly terrifying. Stiles had been equally terrified that he was about to get eaten, and that he would survive only to find that Scott was dead due to a lack of backup since Melia and Kira had been Scott when the car broke down.

He was lost in memories when a very hot MILF with an expression that screamed Karen came from the house kitty corner from them. “Excuse me,” she said loudly. “Excuse me,” she repeated before Stiles could even respond to her first call, which seemed a little rude.

Stiles turned and offered her his best smile. “Good morning.”

“There is a strict two hour parking limit for any guests.”

“Thank you for sharing?” Stiles wasn't entirely sure how he was supposed to respond to that, so he gave his brain free rein. “In California it is illegal for women to drive a motor vehicle while wearing a housecoat.”

“What?” She looked at Stiles like he should be in Eichen House or whatever lunatic asylum they used in the suburbs. Stiles had a lot of negative associations with people looking at him like that.

“I thought we were exchanging random facts about social rules.”

The woman's frown grew deeper. “I saw your jeep here all day yesterday. your jeep cannot be parked here for longer than two hours.”

“Oh. You think I'm visiting Peter,” Stiles said. The woman just didn’t like having a poor person’s vehicle cluttering up her neighborhood. Stiles plastered his best customer-service smile on his face. “I'm not visiting. I'm actually on the deeds of the house with Peter.” And boy wasn't that a mind fuck. Stiles had no idea how he was supposed to handle the fact that Peter Hale was sharing a multimillion dollar house with him. Well, no. He’d expected Peter to share the house, but he was surprised Peter had shared the legal ownership. He would be more freaked out, only Peter was also sharing the house with Derek.

Celeste suggested that pack politics made shared ownership practical when the resources were available to the whole pack. She'd even suggested that Derek put the loft in Peter's name. And that had not gone over well.

The MILFy neighbor was stared at Stiles in horror. “What?”

“What what?” Stiles asked.

“You live here? You own this house?” She pointed at Peter’s place, which was significantly larger than her own McMansion, although they were both obnoxiously large. At least Peter could claim he needed space for the pack, but the rest of these houses seemed practically empty. “And you drive that?” She poked a bony finger in Roscoe's direction.

“Hey! Be nice to the Jeep. It was my late mother's, and I am very fond of my Roscoe.”

“You absolutely cannot leave that parked in the driveway. This is not the sort of neighborhood where vehicles like that are welcome.”

“Do you have something against blue? Or maybe you don’t like the make of the car. Are you a car racist?” Stiles didn't finish because the woman huffed and puffed up so much that for a second Stiles was concerned she might actually be a demon. She spun on her heel and stomped back towards her house.

Only then did the front door open and Peter was there, leaning on the doorjamb. “Darling, you have surpassed even my ability to aggravate that battle-ax. I am quite impressed. And since I now consider her my arch-enemy, I owe you for vanquishing her.”

“Wait. Her? Is she the idiot who testified against you in the HOA court case?”

“One and the idiotic same,” Peter said as he stepped to one side to let Stiles into the house. “The furniture from Virginia came. I set us up in the four bedrooms on the north side of the second floor. I am on the corner, and then it is my office and then your office and then your bedroom.”

Stiles frowned. “Wait. We’re taking up four bedrooms? But this whole place only has like seven.” And a finished basement and two formal living rooms and an informal family room and a library and enough space that Stiles still thought of it as a museum more than a house.

“I have Celeste set up on the south side and a room set aside for Derek. As the other pack alpha, he should have some perks.” Peter's smile grew a little more strained, but then Peter and Derek hadn't reached any formal agreements yet, so Stiles did understand that things would be tense until the two Hale men figured out how to pack together. There was a lot of bad blood under that bridge.

Peter continued. “There is one bedroom that I'm reserving for an actual guest room, but if the pack is here for any length of time, I assume we will simply have a sleepover in the informal living room.”

Stiles grinned. “Puppy piles for the win. Dude, that is excellent thinking.”

Peter raised an eyebrow, but if he insisted on calling Stiles things like darling and sweetheart, Stiles had the right to call him dude. “Would you like to help me inspect the gym downstairs? I believe the workmen are nearly finished.” Peter headed towards the back of the house.

“Won't Susan be staying here for a while?” Stiles respected the woman’s fortitude and he suspected she would get control over the wolf way faster than any of the teenagers Stiles had seen through their transitions, but it still seemed weird that a new beta wouldn’t live with her alpha. And clearly Stiles was a hypocrite because he’d never even considered making Liam or Jackson live with their respective alphas.

“Susan can use the guest room or basement during full moons, but she has already purchased her own home in a more affluent area.”

Stiles eyebrows climbed up into his hairline. “More affluent? Exactly how much wealth you need to show off?”

“Don't be naïve Stiles. One can never show off too much wealth.”

“Newsflash, you totally can. In fact, this level of wealth approaches douchebaggery.”

“Then I shall trust you to make sure I don't fall over into utter and complete douchebaggery. I don't mind someone assuming I am a villain, but I do have certain standards to uphold.”

Stiles rolled his eyes.

Peter headed into a finished basement. “I certainly could have purchased a larger home, but I was trying to get something on this side of Sacramento since it would reduce the commute time for any weekend visits. And having a large and active pack requires more room than you might think. I suspect some of the pack tensions result from being confined in a space too small for the wolves to feel comfortable. There is a reason my family had such a large home on the edge of the preserve.”

“That is surprisingly thoughtful of you.”

Peter gave him an inscrutable look, and then Stiles tabled the conversation because he saw that there were strangers in the house. “Stiles,” Peter said, this is beta Cameron Fisher from the Sacramento pack. He is installing a werewolf-appropriate gym for us.”

A beta with red hair and a definite dad bod gave Stiles a wide smile. “Nice to meet you. Are you the pack witch everyone has been talking about? My grandmother knew one back seventy years ago or so, and she was always very impressed with what they could do.”

“I'm new at it, so I mostly a pack witch light. I'm just talented at annoying alphas.”

Cameron laughed. “Sometimes that is the greatest talent of all. Alphas need someone to annoy them. So, would you like to inspect the place, Mr. Hale?”

Peter walked around the equipment, tugging on a few pieces without showing too much interest in any of it.

“So, is the Sacramento pack okay with Peter moving here?” Stiles asked. He knew it was probably a rude question, but his curiosity was always bigger than his polite button, something that had always annoyed his dad a bit.

“It’s been a good twenty years since we've had a law firm that could handle the supernatural. Having Peter Hale back in the state more than makes up for any aggravation, but it helps that he's going to have territory up in Beacon Hills. That is one nightmare territory that none of us want to get dragged into, so having more experienced wolves to handle that area means that we are more than happy to welcome Peter to the neighborhood.”

Peter hummed. “You are simply worried that you’re the first stop on the freeway down from Beacon Hills and any crazy spilled over into your territory.”

“Hell yes,” Cameron said with zero shame. The beta leaned closer to Stiles. “Good luck with that place.”

Stiles wrinkled his nose. “I would take offense, only that seems like a really reasonable reaction to hearing that someone is voluntarily living in Beacon Hills.” Although technically Stiles lived here and was just staying with his dad while the pack got sorted. If Stiles stayed in Sacramento too long, Derek got a little more broody than the rest of them could handle.

The beta snorted and gave Stiles a shoulder bump that immediately earned a nasty glare from Peter. And if Stiles stayed in Beacon Hills too long, Peter got a little more jealous than Stiles could handle. The beta took a quick step away. “If there are any changes you want, let me know and I can make adjustments.”

Peter curled his claws around a weight bar that was way heftier than anything Stiles had ever seen in a regular gym. “I may need some adjustments after my nephew in the younger betas workout down here, but for now this seems adequate.”

“I will take adequate. You have our number if you need anything. Good luck,” he said to Stiles as he held up a fist for a bump. Stiles fist bumped him back and then the beta retreated fast even while a low growl reverberated through the air.

“Dude, anger issues,” Stiles said. Peter stopped growling, but he didn't look any happier.

“Is Derek coming?”

“Yep. He should be about half an hour behind me, maybe an hour of he stops to fix his hair.”

Peter rolled his eyes, exactly like Stiles expected him to. For someone who spent an hour getting dressed in the morning and color coordinating all of his accessories, Peter was pretty dismissive about Derek's hygiene habits. Maybe that was because Derek could spend the same amount of time and look like he had artfully tousled hair after rolling out of bed. When Peter put himself together, he looked like he was ready to walk down the runway in Milan. “Is he likely to offer a leadership role in the pack?”

That was a tricky question. “I think so. I assume so because he needs a co-Alpha, and I think he's realizing that. Now that he's loosening up on the pack bonds, everyone feels how stressed and miserable Derek is, and that's making all of the betas a little restless. He knows they need stability.”

Peter nodded, but the bond still echoed with unspoken stress. Stiles went over and rested a hand on Peter's arm. “You'll be good for the pack. They need a crazy uncle who will kick their butts if they get out of line, but who they can trust to come to their rescue if someone is so emotionally constipated that he's not able to do what he should.”

“I might be horrified that you are essentially telling me that I am responsible for the emotional needs of the pack.”

“Well if you want, you can be responsible for the physical needs and move back to Beacon Hills to fight the bad guy of the week.”

“Out of the question,” Peter said sharply. “If I had my way, I would recruit heavily from local packs and have them set up patrols to take care of most of these issues before they could reach Beacon Hills. In return, I would offer them certain financial support.”

That was a solution Stiles hadn’t considered. “Would that work?”

“It would work better than waiting until villains reached Beacon Hills and became corrupted by the Nemeton. While the distorted magic won’t change the essence of a person’s soul, it makes it more difficult to stop evil on the territory. That’s why Talia set up so many alliances around the territory.”

“And can we repeat her trick?”

Peter sighed. “That might be a strategy to bring up in a year or two, but I'm pretty sure the local packs are going to be a little cautious about having an alliance with the Hale pack right now.”

There went that hope. Celeste had warned him that Peter's time as left hand and then as a feral alpha had damaged the pack’s reputation and Scott's inaction and willingness to allow clear dangers to leave the territory in order to prey on other packs had damaged it more. Even Derek with his emotional constipation left other packs wondering just how stable this new pack might be. So until the pack could develop a reputation for being sane, they were going to have to take care of the territory on their own.

“Do you think we could use some of those financial resources to get Derek a Batcave?”

“Define Batcave.”

Stiles scratched the side of his neck. I was thinking maybe we could hire someone who was really good with computers to set up monitoring stations. We can have them magically enhanced and set up a control room in Derek's building and then the pack would have a better idea of what's going on in the territory.”

Peter pondered that for so long that Stiles expected a refusal. Instead Peter started to nod. “I might be to free up a few resources for that.”

It was weird to think of pack defenses in terms of what resources they could purchase. For so many years defending the territory meant flailing from one disaster to the next. Hell, half the disasters they’d faced—like the Nogitsune—were the result of some half-assed attempt to the previous problem.

Stiles took a deep breath and debated with himself whether he should bring up the next subject. Part of him wanted to avoid it, but if they were going to figure out how to be a pack, he needed to clear the air. And as much as Stiles had tried very hard to ignore his father's inappropriate comments, they had crawled into his brain and made it hard to think about anything else.

“Before Derek gets here, do you think maybe we could talk about what sort of relationship we have?” Stiles hated that his voice had risen as if he were unsure. Immediately, his pack bond with Peter quieted. He was way better at closing down his ends of the pack bonds, but he never did unless he was trying to hide his feelings from Stiles. And that made Stiles feel horrible because it meant that Peter was making all the wrong assumptions.

Stiles hurried to get words out before Peter could draw all the wrong conclusions. “It's just that my dad keeps saying things that are getting in my head it and making me feel like I'm crazy.”

Peter frowned and concern flowed through the pack bond as he loosened up on his end of it. “Is your father still annoyed that I threatened Deaton?”

Stiles huffed. “Actually, I think he's annoyed that you used me as bait for a trap for Deaton. And he might be annoyed that you were so happy about it working. He had just gotten off the phone with me where I told him I got knocked on my ass, so he probably would've preferred a little more violence.”

“I do believe that is the first time anyone has told me that I was inappropriately under-aggressive.”

Stiles shrugged. Everyone thought of his dad as being so laid-back, but the fact was, he wasn't always. Stiles remembered back when his mom had first gotten sick and they had gone to some doctor who had said that he couldn't do anything because the condition was untreatable. His father had yelled so loud that Stiles had heard him from the waiting room. His dad definitely had a temper if you pushed the right buttons. Hell, if someone had burned his family alive, Stiles was pretty sure his father would've done exactly what Peter had. He frowned as he realized for the first time that the two men actually were terrifyingly similar. That was potentially a little more Freudian than Stiles was comfortable with.

“Stiles?” Peter sat on the bench next to him. “What is going on in that brain of yours?”

“My dad has this weird idea that you like me,” Stiles blurted.

“You are sarcastic, vicious, and utterly dedicated to those you consider pack and family. What is there not to like? I even appreciate your ability to annoy my nephew. Too few people are willing to do that. I blame his mother's freakishly good genetics. Perhaps if her children had been less attractive, they would not if grown up quite so entitled.”

Derek had a lot of flaws, possibly as many as Scott, and Stiles could count every one of those. However, he would never call Derek entitled. Shortsighted? Oh yeah. Aggressive? Excessively, although not as much as Peter. Insecure? Possibly as insecure as Stiles himself. In short, the man was a bundle of neuroses all wrapped up in a lot of psychological dysfunction and past trauma. That said, Stiles did understand that Peter and Derek had rather unrealistic views of each other. It did make Stiles worry about how this merging of the packs would go.

“Disturbingly enough, my dad has the impression that we might be dating.”

Peter's eyebrows went up and shock radiated through the bond.

“Exactly!” Stiles threw his hands up into the air. “That was exactly my reaction. Why can't be friends with someone and live with them for three years without dating them?”

“I've watched you chase any number of inappropriate partners from that inadequate school of yours, so I am very aware of how possible it is. What gave your father the impression that we were dating?”

“I have no idea. I'm pretty sure he's just delusional. We may want to have him check for dementia.” Stiles grimaced. Fifteen years after his mom's death was still too soon for that joke. Peter rested his hand on Stiles’s leg.

“The ironic thing is that the witch who gave me that pack grimoire suggested something very similar,” Peter said.

“Garcia? She of the inappropriateness? Well, I don't take her too seriously, because I'm pretty sure she has naughty thoughts about everyone. Unless I miss my guess, she writes some really hard-core fanfic in her free time.”

“Most likely,” Peter agreed in a distracted town. “But she was rather convinced that we were a couple.”

“Yeah, well I know you are way out of my league. Way.” Stiles said. “I am more of a flannel guy. Hell, your daughter was out of my league, and she grew up a feral coyote in the middle of nowhere.”

Peter frowned. “I’m certainly not out of your league. What would make you say that?”

Stiles gestured to Peter's immaculate outfit and then his own Star Wars T-shirt and ripped jeans. “We do not exactly look like a matching set.”

“And the fact that we are so different might be a valid reason to not date; however, it does not make me out of your league. If anything, the reverse is true. Compared to you, I am an old man. As you said, you dated my daughter. And, I have a rather sordid background that includes multiple cases of murder. In fact, if your father assumed we were dating, I am frankly surprised he did not show up with wolfsbane, bullets, threatening to kill me for eyeing his son.”

“And I have a history with the Nogitsune. I’m pretty sure there was murder involved there too. At least you only killed assholes who were actually guilty of something, well, that and nurse Jennifer.” Stiles shuddered as he remembered the decomposing body of Peter's nurse shoved into the trunk of her car. That was not a happy memory.

“Actually,” Peter said, “Derek killed her.”

“What? No he didn't.”

Peter shrugged. “I'm not entirely sure he realized he killed her, but when he was trying to save you from me, he elbowed her in the face. It drove the facial bones into her brain.”

“Ew.” Stiles wrinkled his nose.

“Exactly. And since I drove my claws into his brain stem so I could share my own memories of the fire, he was unconscious, leaving me to deal with her dead body. I was very aggravated.”

“Probably not as aggravated as her since she was dead. However, that makes my point even better. That means you have literally never killed anyone who wasn't already a murdering asshole. You have standards for your murder plots.” Stiles mentally rewound that last sentence. Yeah, if he ever said that out loud in front of Scott, there would be tragic eyes and lectures in his future. If he said it in front of Derek, there would be eyebrows of doom.

“Stiles, I assure you, your morals are much stronger than mine,” Peter promised. “Had you been in the same situation, you would've been clever enough to find a way to frame each and every one of them, and send them all the prison. I accept my moral culpability in choosing to kill them.”

“Wait.” Stiles frowned. “Are you trying to tell me you don't think you're good enough for me?” Shock stole his ability to form words. Luckily, nothing could stop Stiles’s ability to talk for long. “I can promise you that you are good enough for me. I’m not all anti-murder, although don’t phrase it that way to my dad. But you have no idea how many times Scott and I got into serious disagreements about his black and white moral stances on pretty much everything. Growing up the son of a cop, I totally see gray. It's not as simple as shooting someone is good or shooting someone is bad. Sometimes it's the thing that happens even when you don't want it to happen because there's no way to have it not happen without worst things happening.”

Peter gave animate him an amused look. “Was that supposed to make sense?”

“It did in my head.” Stiles grabbed Peter’s hand and held it tightly. “I thought you were okay with what you did.”

“I suffer no guilt over it. You are right that I believe that all of those I killed deserved it. But I also accept that not everyone will agree with me. Derek, for example. This meeting with him is likely to be exceptionally uncomfortable.”

“Everything is uncomfortable these days with Derek. The whole pack is uncomfortable with Derek, and then he tries backing away from the pack bond so that people are less uncomfortable. And that's even more uncomfortable because then they don't feel the discomfort and realize Derek's just trying to soak up all the misery for himself. Does occur you we should probably have a therapist on retainer?”

“It has. Perhaps we can table that discussion for another day. I admit that I am rather confused about what conversation we’re having. What exactly did you want to clarify in our relationship?”

Stiles scratched the side of his neck. “You know, I have no idea. I thought I was warning you that my dad was being crazy balls and that you should completely ignore the potentially delusional man who thought we like-liked each other. Now, I'm not entirely sure what conversation I'm having with you.”

Peter nodded slowly. “Might I suggest you are having the ‘it's uncomfortable that my father is trying to project a relationship on to me despite the fact the man in question is more of a father figure than a romantic interest?’ Because if that is the conversation we’re having, I entirely understand.”

“I should probably go with that,” Stiles said. “The problem is, I'm pretty sure I don't have father-figure feelings towards you, or if these are father-figure feelings, I need that therapist way more than you and Derek. And trust me, you two are in desperate need of therapy.”

“Stiles?” Confusion filled the bond.

“I don't want to make this awkward,” Stiles blurted out. “You set up a room and an office for me, so I don't have to feel like I'm trapped, but more than that, you understood that I did feel trapped spending all that time with my dad and Derek, both of whom have real trouble seeing that I’m not a hyperactive little kid anymore. They both love me, but there is smothering going on. And Scott. Oh god. Did you know that Scott actually thought I would drive the hour and half from the university back to Beacon Hills every single day? Yeah, because three hours of driving time a day sounds just glorious, that on top of living with my father who keeps making inappropriate comments about my love life. And no one else really hears me when I tell them what I’m thinking or feeling because they assume they know how I should think or feel.”

Peter put his hand over Stiles’s. “Stiles, are you suggesting that I might have a chance if I were to be interested?”

“I wouldn't say you don’t have a chance,” Stiles said. “I'm just saying I would be horrified if you took a chance and then the chance you took ended up making things more awkward between us.”

Peter held Stiles’ hand tightly. “Darling, you helped set me on fire. I'm fairly certain that if we can overcome that awkwardness, we can overcome any difficulties that might follow from a relationship.”

Stiles looked at him. “So, are we doing this?”

Peter smiled. “Oh, sweetheart, we are definitely doing this.”


	3. Chapter 3

“Derek, come in.” Peter desperately wished they did not have to do this at this exact moment, but Stiles did have questionable timing. He always had.

“Nice place,” Derek said while his tone managed to somehow convey the exact opposite.

“Compared to the loft, it's not bad.” Peter enjoyed his little dig until he turned to see the disappointed look on Stiles’s face. And that was followed up by a sharp pull on their pack bond that made Peter’s ribs ache. Stiles really was quite the little tyrant.

Peter headed for the kitchen. Perhaps food would reduce the tension somewhat.

“There's an entire workout room in the basement,” Stiles said with a little too much enthusiasm. “It would be totally awesome to get the pack over here and really let them workout on equipment that's designed for werewolves. Wouldn't that be awesome?”

Peter walked faster, so he didn't have to listen to Derek's response. He had no doubt that Derek would keep the betas as far away as possible, but as long as a significant number of them had a secondary bond to Peter, that was fine. Derek was welcome to play the happy pack-maker.

Peter reached the kitchen and headed for the refrigerator. He had a snack tray ready to go just in case the situation turned out to be as awkward as he had expected, and he now pulled it out and put it on the quartz island. Stiles and Derek followed a second later and Derek studied the layout of the rooms, his gaze growing more suspicious with every passing minute.

“Nice place Uncle Peter. This must've cost a lot.”

If Peter was correctly applying his Derek to English translation matrix, that meant that Derek was questioning who Peter had robbed. “I am a partner in one of the most vicious litigation firms in the United States. I think you will find that top-notch lawyers can command their own price.”

Derek gave Peter a slitty-eyed look.

“Perhaps we can discuss pack roles,” Peter said sailing right into the thick of the problem. “I will not be your left hand, so do not assume that you can put any disagreeable task off on me.”

“What?” Derek appeared genuinely bewildered. “I would never expect that of you. Maybe we don't get along, but we’re family.”

“And I was family with my sister. As many arguments as Talia and I had, and we had many, we loved each other. And yet, when I was fourteen or fifteen years old, she sent me to Alpha Ito to learn strategy so that I could become an left-hand. So being family does not preclude one from asking fellow pack members to sacrifice their lives.”

Derek threw his hands up. “Here we go, same old Peter. When all else fails, blame Mom.”

Peter barely contained a growl, but then Stiles stepped right between them and held his hand out in each direction before he gave such a hard pull to the pack bond that Peter had to catch himself on the island and Derek physically jerked forward.

“Good, if I have your attention now, maybe we can start on slightly less difficult territory. For example, maybe we can work on having a stronger pack bond between you two.”

Peter and Derek eyed each other suspiciously. Peter was starting to question this whole plan. As much as Peter hated his little McFail Wolf, perhaps he could talk the moron into fighting for an alpha spark and retaking his position. Derek had certainly worked well with him for many years.

“Pack bond?” Stiles asked in a sharp voice. Derek gave a huge sigh, but then Peter felt his bond to his nephew slide into place. It was a weak and tenuous thread, but it slowly grew until Peter could feel the distrust and fear. That was his nephew. His body might not show the scars, but his soul clearly still had them.

Sighing, Peter reached out towards that connection and let his own suspicion and wariness flow through the bond. Maybe Derek had cause to worry about this alliance, but so did Peter. He had not been used well by his family, and Derek could complain all he wanted about how unfair it was to criticize a dead woman, but Peter had lived under her reign far longer than Derek. He had seen the consequences of her mistakes. He had lived through them in a way that Derek never had.

“Good,” Stiles said. “Step one complete. So now we are all perfectly aware of how miserable everyone else in this room is. Great.” Stiles grimaced.

“Sweetheart, you knew this would be difficult,” Peter said.

Stiles snorted. “Developing the first nuclear bomb was difficult. This goes beyond difficult, but I am the mighty pack witch, and we are going to figure this out. Either that or I’m going to double the misery quotient in this room. So, Derek, tell me one thing you really need from Peter.”

Peter raised his eyebrows. Someone had definitely been coaching Stiles, although Peter wasn't sure whether it was Susan or Celeste who had given him a course in negotiations.

“I want him to stop badmouthing Mom,” Derek said.

“I don't think speaking the truth is badmouthing. Or perhaps you think I should lie about what Talia ask me to do as a fifteen-year-old child in order to spare your feelings.”

“Peter,” Stiles said in a warning voice.

Peter picked up an expensive Italian salami and shoved it in his mouth before he could say something less charitable about his idiot nephew.

Stiles turned to Derek. “He is not going to stop talking about the life he has lived, but he might agree to make factual statements about your mom mother instead of passing judgment on her abilities as an alpha. However, factually stating that she asked him at age fifteen to live with Alpha Ito and learn strategy in preparation for becoming left-hand is not a criticism of your mother's leadership style. It could be taken as critical if someone thought that asking a fifteen-year-old to plan for a career as an executioner was cruel and inappropriate, but he did not use those words.”

Peter was not entirely certain that Stiles entirely grasp the role of a negotiator. Derek looked even more sour now than he did before Stiles started speaking. Surprisingly, Derek snapped out an unhappy, “Fine. Factual statements only.”

Stiles gave him a wide grin and patted Derek on the arm. Derek narrowed his eyes and the threat of violence whispered through the bond. Peter slapped both of his hands down on the kitchen island and Derek and Stiles both looked at him in surprise.

“So if it is my turn, then my first condition would be that you stop using your superior strength against Stiles. You do not threaten him, you do not slam him into walls, you do not slam his head into steering wheels, you do not knock him down or force him to let go of something. You do not take any of your foul moods out on any human member of the pack, but especially Stiles.” Peter surprised himself with the venom in his voice, but he had always been aggravated with the way that Derek took advantage of Stiles’s overly forgiving nature. And since Peter took advantage of that nature himself, he was hypocritical, but he had never claimed to be a good man.

“Dude, way to sound a little unhinged,” Stiles whispered. Peter pinned him with an angry glare and Stiles held both hands up in surrender. “Fine. That's your first condition. Derek would you like to comment on that?”

Derek chewed on his upper lip for a second before he focused on Stiles. “I apologize for that.” He sounded pained saying that, but Peter could feel the genuine regret through the bond.

“No problem, Sourwolf. But I do agree with Peter that you do need to use your words. Words are good.”

Derek nodded unhappily.

“Derek, what is your next condition?”

Derek straightened up and looked Peter in the eye, and for the first time Peter had a sense that he was an alpha facing another alpha. “You need to stop calling Scott names. No Fail Wolf, no One True Failure, no McFail. No references to Scott being stupid, nothing.”

Peter sucked air through his front teeth. “In front of you, in front of Scott, in front of the entire pack, or at all?” he asked.

“At all,” Derek snapped.

Stiles winced. “Maybe we can limit that to Peter will only say things like that in front of me? You know I don’t actually listen to his whining about Scott.”

“Stiles, Celeste, and Susan,” Peter added. “I will refrain from calling him anything other than McCall if there is anyone else present.”

After a second, Derek nodded. “Deal.” He wisely did not attempt to convince Peter of Scott's finer qualities. Peter put up with that from Stiles, but he wouldn’t from Derek.

Peter considered his next move a little more carefully. “Even if I am not in Beacon Hills, you will inform me of anything of interest. You will not attempt to fix problems without me or take care of something before I find out. For the most part, I have no interest in running back and micromanaging you. I have a law career to manage and a new satellite office to run. Susan only plans to stay here long enough to get the office running and get control of her wolf. After that she will split her time with the majority of her time being in Virginia. But I do not want you to use my physical absence from the pack as a way to stage some sort of functional coup where you decide how the pack should handle potential conflicts and I find out only after the fact.”

Derek frowned. “I wouldn't do that to you Uncle Peter.”

“Really? I'm fairly certain there's enough bad blood between us that you would find it easier to solve problems without my input.”

“Even Mom always trusted that you could find creative solutions that kept everyone happy, and when you couldn't, you’d find solutions that protected the pack. I wouldn't cut you off of information. So I agree that that would be best for the pack. But the other side of that is that you can't keep secrets. You can't act like you know better than the rest of us and that you're the only one who understands the reality of the world. That means no deals behind my back. No tricking us into supporting you. For example, all this stuff about Stiles blackmailing you into going to Virginia with him… I have no idea what all of that was about, but I know you were behind it all. I would just like to know what schemes you have going so that I'm not constantly wondering what plots you have going.”

Peter chuckled. “Stiles was convinced you would believe that was his scheme.”

Derek rolled his eyes. “Stiles’s schemes about snack foods and who gets to order the pack dinner. He doesn't blackmail people into helping pay his college costs. He has more morals than that.”

“Technically, I don't,” Stiles said. “Peter forming a pack bond with me was completely his plot and a really creepy one because he stripped the skin off of his own back and then showed up with an excuse that I needed to help him with ointment so that I would touch him long enough to form the pack bond. But once I figured out that he didn't have pack bonds to anyone else, I am the one who told him he had to come to Virginia with me. So me backing him into a corner to get him to pay my cost-of-living during college was pretty much all me. I am obviously not too good to do exactly that.”

Derek stared at Stiles blankly, and Stiles shrugged. “Sorry dude. Didn't mean to tarnish your image of me or anything, but I thought we already knew that Scott was the morally upstanding one in this pack.” Stiles didn’t have even a trace of guilt. Peter did love the little scallywag, and he enjoyed the utterly dumbfounded expression on Derek’s face.

“And on that note,” Stiles added. “I want something from both of you. We do not shut each other out. What you guys did with Peter, leaving him to potentially go omega because you were personally uncomfortable with him, that is crap. We need to talk about feelings in this pack. Talk. With words. You know the sounds that come out when you use your diaphragm and project air through your vocal cords. I'm not even to tell you what language you have to use, but we need to talk about things instead of getting butt-hurt and then making decisions that could go potentially sideways. Because Derek, you and I were both there during Peter's insane feral stage the first time, and crazy Peter is crazy and you could have created a dangerous situation by going along with Scott's dumb-ass plan to drive him away by denying him pack bonds.

“How do you know Scott made that decision alone?”

Stiles crossed his arm and glared at Derek. “It's a dumb ass plan that completely ignores any werewolf instincts. Of course it was Scott.”

Derek and Peter both grimaced.

Derek looked at Peter. “You turned him.”

“I was entirely not in my right mind at the time.”

Derek shrugged, but there was a sort of acceptance in the bond.

“Okay invoking my rule of talking and Derek's rule of not keeping secretiveness, Peter would you like to say something about why the Argents are dead,” Stiles suggested.

Peter winced. He had not intended to get into matters that serious until he knew that Derek would honor any leadership agreements. But Stiles was right that Peter had to honor the spirit of their truce. “Derek, if you had trained as an alpha or if you had gone up to speak with Alpha Ito, you would have learned that most of the magic in the world comes from old ones, gods who are the source of most world mythology.”

“Like King Lycaon and Selene are the gods of werewolves?” Derek asked. Ironically only one of those names was accurate, but Peter chose to ignore the details and focus on the bigger picture.

“Those stories are not myths as much as distorted records of real events. Most of the magic in the world is derived originally from these old ones. The leaders of supernatural communities take vows to keep the community small and quiet so that our thoughts do not grow loud enough to wake the gods that we are associated with.”

“But mom always prayed to Selene at the full moon ceremonies,” Derek said in confusion.

“Exactly,” Peter said. “Selene is an entirely made up goddess. It allows us to honor the gods we came from without speaking loudly enough with one voice so that there is a danger they would hear us. When the gods are awake, one need only look to mythology to know how miserable they can make this world.”

“No joke,” Stiles muttered. “If the mythology is even ten percent true, the old gods are total dicks.”

“Perhaps you would like to think that more quietly,” Peter suggested. “I have a friend who is very old and very magical. She suggested that the dragons might be stirring, and that the Argents had been warned to quiet their hunters.”

“And their definition of quieting them is to kill them all?” Derek asked in horror. It was ironic that Marie had managed to overcome Derek’s hatred for the Argents long enough to inspire sympathy.

“It does mean that there are significantly fewer Argents thinking about the Hale pack, and it means that there are significantly more humans who consider Argents a mortal form of insanity. If Hitler and Pol Pot and Stalin could not wake the old ones, I promise that no amount of mortal stupidity will. It is only supernatural stupidity that we need to worry about.”

Derek pulled out a chair and sat heavily. “If I couldn't feel you,” he said, rubbing his chest, “I would swear you were trying to pull some strange practical joke.”

“I assure you. I am not. And to that end, we need to make sure that the Hale pack is keeping Beacon Hills quiet. I've asked Celeste to look into cleansing the Nemeton, and we need to make sure that no one else learns about the supernatural creatures. There can be no telling little friends in high school, no bringing new people in, and definitely no biting humans.

“And, I know that I started that,” Peter said as he held a hand up to stop Derek's coming protests. “I respect that my choices exacerbated the situation. But if the dragons are stirring and the old ones are sleeping restlessly, there is no room for us to make another mistake. And to that end, we cannot tell this truth to anyone else in the pack. I have never told Celeste, and I will not approve of telling anyone else, not the sheriff, not Scott, and certainly not high school students who do not even have fully formed frontal cortexes, much less the ability to handle a secret on which the fate of the literal world hangs. In fact, we need to agree that we do not turn teenagers. Ever.”

Derek look like he was going to object, but Stiles interrupted him. “Dude, he's kinda right. I mean, I was there for all the teenage drama, and it was not pretty. It was totally not pretty, and looking back, a little bit of maturity would have solved at least thirty percent of our problems.”

“I think the percentage probably would've been closer to seventy,” Peter said dryly. “Don't forget, I was there too. For a time, I existed only as a thought in Lydia's head, so I was more than aware of some of the irresponsible behaviors of pack members. Stiles, you openly discussed werewolves while walking down the hallways of your high school, and you kept chains in your gym locker.”

Stiles winced. “Not my finest moment.”

“If one wishes to keep secrets, keeping them out of a high school seems best.”

Stiles didn't wait for Derek to agree. “He's got a point. We can take in teenagers if something happens to their pack, but turning teenagers should probably be a no go, and that makes sense because with this new spell, I can make sure that older people can turn. We don't have to worry about approaching someone when they are young enough that their mind is still open to change. As long as they have even an ounce of creativity that allows me to hijack that pathway into the spark, I can make sure that the turning goes right.”

Derek slowly nodded. “That sounds reasonable.”

Peter looked at Derek. “It seems possible for us to work together, but I am still concerned about what role you think I will play if you are the primary alpha of Beacon Hills.”

Derek study Peter for a long time. “I thought maybe you could be my right hand?”

Peter was shocked. He thought perhaps Derek would ask him to take the role of an advisor. Usually those were much older wolves, but it would give them a legitimate relationship and would allow Derek to remain the primary decision-maker in the pack. As an advisor, Peter's status would've been below both Derek and his right hand, who Peter had honestly expected to be Scott.

The thought of being technically second in a pack structure to Failure McCall had been galling, but Peter had braced himself for that reality. But this was far better than Peter had expected from his nephew, and that made him wonder if he had misjudged his nephew badly.

Peter slowly nodded. “I would be proud to be your right hand.” Peter smiled and the tension drained out of their bond. Maybe he and Derek would never like each other, but maybe there was a chance they could learn to respect one another.


	4. Chapter 4

“You are entirely too fond of that trick with the pack bonds,” Peter said after he had closed the door behind Derek. Stiles might duck his head and blush and flail, but when one looked past all the outward symbols of submission, he was the least submissive person Peter knew, and he counted Susan in that calculation.

Stiles shrugged without denying it. “If I let you to work at your own pace, you would never accomplish anything. If I have to yank you around by the pack bonds for the next year or two, it's a small price to pay.”

“That is downright pessimistic,” Peter said without denying it. He certainly hadn’t wanted to establish a bond with Derek. He had done so only to placate Stiles, but now he knew the depth of Derek’s grief over not only their shared losses but their estrangement. Peter had assumed Derek hadn’t forgiving him, but while the trust was absent from their bond, affection was not. Given how badly Peter had treated Derek both before and after the fire, that had surprised Peter.

“Excuse me very much, but I do tend to be a little pessimistic when it comes to the mental health of the Hales,” Stiles said with a snort.

“You're not entirely wrong.” Peter wondered if that was a function of the fire or whether all of them had been doomed to some form of emotional constipation long before the Argents. It wasn't as if home had been pleasant before the fire. The last time Peter could remember true unreserved joy had been before his parents had died. 

There was certainly laughter in the home. Peter could not imagine a home with children that did not ring with laughter. However, the adults always hovered on the edge of that childlike joy and watched, never quite able to join. Now that Peter was an alpha, sometimes he looked back and wondered if Talia’s frustrations grew out of having to carry more than she should. It seemed like most of the packs in California expected her to mediate for them, to provide some wise insight, to find some impossible solution. That last had often meant her pushing Peter to find an impossible solution. 

Sometimes Peter taken that as a challenge, and sometimes he had been so damn tired that he had lashed out at her. Talia had, by turns, lashed out at him for pulling away from the pack and guilted him into returning. However, Peter had never felt entirely at home there. That's why he had expected Derek to relegate him to the role of left hand. But instead, Derek chose to take that responsibility for himself and to take Peter as his right hand.

Stiles closed the distance between them and rested his hand on Peter's chest. “I really think you two could like each other if you would stop hating each other.”

Peter smiled perhaps. “For right now, I think I will work on not hating him.” Despite his words, Peter was afraid the bond had already made him vulnerable to his nephew.

“Excellent goal.” Stiles shoved his hands in his pockets and then rocked back and forth nervously. 

Peter could smell the tension in the air. He rested his own hand on top of Stiles’s, trapping him. “Stiles?”

Stiles cleared his throat. “This is way more awkward than I thought.”

“Now Stiles, I happen to know for a fact you are not a virgin.” Peter had smelled that evidence more than once when Stiles had come home late from some university class. His wolf had raged each time, not necessarily out of jealousy, but just out of a general sense of wrongness that someone as close to him as Stiles would sleep with an individual who wasn't even pack. Maybe there was a little jealousy.

“Well, yeah,” Stiles said, “but those were people that I slept with. They weren't people that I liked.”

Peter's eyebrows went up.

“That sounded amazingly wrong. Spectacularly wrong. Let me try that again,” Stiles blurted. “The people I slept with in college were experiments to see what felt good. That was me scratching an itch. It wasn't me trying to figure out how to have a relationship with someone who is important to me, and it definitely wasn't me scared of screwing up something I have that I really, really value.”

“Why Stiles, are you saying that you value me?” Peter preened.

Stiles smacked his arm. “You know damn well I value you. You don't have to fish for reassurances.”

Peter grimaced, his contentment of a second ago evaporating like smoke. “I wouldn't describe myself like that.”

“Yeah, well, I would. But then, I am plenty insecure and I not only fish for reassurances, but blackmail people into spending time with me, so I don't have any room to criticize. What I mean, though, is that what I have with you is not about making the body feel good.”

“I think I'm offended,” Peter said. “It's not as if I am geriatric or incapable of pleasing a partner.”

Stiles rolled his eyes. “You know what I mean. This thing between us is more real. If I screw it up, it's not about me losing a night of slap and tickle.”

The sentiment warmed Peter. He didn’t want a purely physical relationship with Stiles. He wanted to take the emotional connection they had, that they had built over the last three years, and deepen it. However, he could not resist the urge to tease him. “That is a truly offensive way to put it, and every time you open your mouth, I reconsider my decision to adore you.”

Peter expected Stiles to retaliate. Instead he stepped closer and whispered. “I can't lose you.” His voice was low and heavy with meaning. 

Peter wrapped his arms around Stiles and pulled him close. “You will not lose me. Whether we are ultimately compatible in bed or not, we will always be pack mates. You are the one pack mate who stood with me when everyone else refused. Do you really think my wolf would ever give you up?”

“Scott did.”

“Oh, sweetheart.” Peter tightened his hold and had an intense moment of regret that his various plots to kill Scott had failed. In the short term, Scott's death would've devastated Stiles, but in the long run, Peter would've been much happier. And he would've made it up to Stiles. Well, too late now. If Derek was going to throw a fit about calling the moron stupid, he was certainly not going to react well to any attempt to kill the idiot. Pity.

Peter ran his knuckles over Stiles his cheek, and Stiles looked at him. “I want you. I will always want you,”Peter said. “I do not let go easily.”

“I might be terrible in bed.”

“I sincerely doubt it, but if you are, in fact, the worst lover I have ever bedded, then I will enjoy teaching you.”

“Oh no.” Stiles held a finger up millimeters from Peter’s nose. “You will not teach in bed. There is creepy, and then there is creepy that’s a step too far, even for you.”

“My dear, you have no idea how creepy I can be.” Peter wiggled his eyebrows.

First, Stiles stared at him, and then he started laughing. Peter let himself be swept up with the joy in that sound. That's what Stiles brought to his life. Joy. Before Stiles had even stopped laughing, Peter leaned in and kissed him. 

Their lips pressed together, and after a heartbeat, Stiles parted them just enough for Peter to deepen his kiss. He curled his fingers around the back of Stiles his neck and held him still as he angled his head to better plunder that mouth. Stiles tasted of coffee and spice and magic and joy.

After a second, Stiles found his own courage, and he grabbed Peter's shoulders tightly. He might be younger, but he was no shy neophyte struggling through unfamiliar territory, no matter what he said. Stiles had power, and had ever since Peter had known him. While Scott had stumbled from one bad decision to another, Stiles acted decisively. Often times, his decisiveness was equally wrong, but Peter had made enough mistakes that he did not hold that against Stiles. He also did not hold Stiles his lack of coordination against him, and it was entirely possible that Stiles was going to be utterly unimpressive in bed. Based on his stealth, archery skills, and fighting style, Peter would be grateful if he got out of this encounter without injury. But he didn't care.

Peter wanted Stiles’s joy, his loyalty, his warmth in Peter's bed. He wanted to wake up curled around Stiles and hear his heartbeat in the middle of the night. And he wanted permission to kiss Stiles whenever he wanted because right now Stiles was squirming and clutching Peter like he would never let go and filling the room with the scent of desire.

Once Stiles was panting and his heart pounded out a dangerously fast rhythm, Peter pulled back. “I have an absolutely lovely king-sized bed upstairs, perhaps you would like to help me christen it.”

The minute Peter loosened his hold, Stiles collapsed back into the wall, his hand grabbing the windowsill as if he were about to fall over. For a minute, he blinked, those beautiful lips still parted as he stared blankly at Peter. Peter preened a little at the evidence that he could still leave a younger man breathless.

When Stiles recovered, he nodded. “Bed. Bed would be awesome. I so hope we are not about to completely fuck up this happy family life we have.”

Peter leaned in and nibbled the side of Stiles’s neck. “I assure you, we are not.”

Rather than listen to another round of Stiles’s fears, Peter kissed him again. This time he was more aggressive. Teeth clashed against teeth and Stiles bucked his hips forward. They were both hard. Maybe Stiles was nervous, but he definitely wanted this. Peter grabbed Stiles and threw him over one shoulder so that Stiles his arms hung down Peter's back has he bounded for the stairs.

“Put me down.”

“When I have you in my bed,” Peter said. He used his most licentious tone, and Stiles started to laugh, only to have the sound turn into an awkward gurgle. 

“I am totally going to throw up down your back,” Stiles warned.

“Is that some strange new kink I need to worry about?” Peter teased, but he slowed down so he wasn’t jostling Stiles so much.

Peter deposited Stiles on the floor at the foot of his bed, and then it was a gentle push to make Stiles tumble into it.

“Freak,” Stiles said.

“You are the one that brought bodily fluids into a discussion of our sex life.”

Stiles was sprawled on the bed, his limbs inelegantly flung in four different directions, but he sat up and grabbed Peter's belt and jerked it hard enough that Peter collapsed onto the bed on top of Stiles. “You brute,” Stiles teased.

“You are such a dork,” Peter retaliated. “I have fallen for a dork. What has become of my life?”

Peter shifted to one side and slid his hand under Stiles is atrocious comic book T-shirt and in one motion had it up and off.

Stiles blinked at him for a moment and then reached for Peter sweater. He started pulling on it, but he got the sweater and the shirt underneath tangled and they got caught under Peter's armpit. Stiles started muttering under his breath, and Peter took over, solving the problem by simply pulling on the sweater hard enough to pop a line of stitches. Then Peter stripped off his shirt. For a second, he knelt on the bed, his body on display, and Stiles looked up at him with wide, hungry eyes. Feeling risqué, Peter let his beta shift slide into place. The line of hair below his bellybutton thickened and his arms grew hairy as his nails turned into claws.

Stiles never stopped smelling of desire. He caught Peter's shifted hand in his own and turned it over so that he could kiss the center of the palm.

“Oh, sweetheart.” Peter gently kissed Stiles’s neck, cautious of that his fangs never drew blood. He peppered kisses down Stiles’s chest and to his naval. Stiles started squirming, his breath coming in hungry gasps as Peter unfastened his jeans. When Stiles lifted his butt off the bed, Peter pushed Stiles’s jeans down, revealing a hard cock with precum gathering at the slit. 

Peter had taken lovers during his years in Virginia, and he prided himself and leaving each satisfied. But each time, he'd needed to seduce them, woo them. None of them had looked at Peter and had such an instant desire for him that their bodies were hard and aching the way Stiles was. Giving into temptation, Peter bent down and licked the shaft of Stiles his cock like a lollipop, ending with a kiss just on the tip where he could taste the salt.

Stiles cursed and arched his back and kicked his left leg up so fast that Peter barely moved out of the way before he got a face full of knee.

“Shit. I'm so sorry.”

Peter stripped his own pants off as he chuckled. “Sweetheart, do you have any idea how gratifying it is to have a lover who wants me so much that he loses control? Never apologize for that. That is a gift I will treasure forever.”

“You won't say that if I give you a black eye.”

Peter was naked now, his own cock hard and proud. He let his beta shift fade away before he leaned in and kissed Stiles’s Adam's apple and then the underside of his chin and then his mouth. And the whole time that Peter had his teeth at that vulnerable spot, Stiles never smelled of anything but desire.

“You could give me a dozen black eyes and I would feel exactly the same,” Peter admitted. He had learned young to avoid being vulnerable, but Stiles made him turn his back on those lessons. Before Stiles could argue, Peter lowered his body onto Stiles and grabbed both of their cocks in one hand and started thrusting. 

Stiles arched up off the bed, his head thrown back and the curve of his neck exposed.

“Fuck. Fuck, yes.” Stiles squirmed, and Peter thrust into his hand, their cocks pressed together so that every twitch and flail that Stiles made was transferred straight into him. Peter's own lust nearly over whelmed him, and the hard pattern of thrusts that he had set up disintegrated into something wilder and needier. 

Stiles raked his nails down Peter's arm, and the pain of that tangled with the scent of pure lust that swirled around the bedroom. A need to bite, to own, to feel Stiles’s wolf under him nearly overwhelmed Peter, and he froze, his body arched over Stiles on the bed.

Stiles blinked up at him. 

“My wolf wants you to much. It's not safe,” Peter confessed. He felt like glass that had been heated too quickly and now threatened to shatter.

Stiles rested his hand against Peter's chest. “I’m safe. I'm always safe with you.” Stiles looked up with perfect trust, his body vulnerable and laid out in front of Peter like a sacrifice. Peter kissed Stiles hard and started thrusting into him again. This time, Stiles reached between their hot and sweating bodies to grab Peter's cock, and that was enough. Peter came with a shout, biting into Stiles’s neck with human-dull teeth. Stiles came a half second later, the smell of their combined release heavy in the air.

Peter panted, and for a second, he feared that he had lost himself to the wolf and bitten Stiles, but when he opened his eyes, he saw only a very human love mark.

“Oh fuck. And that was only third base. You're going to break me before we get all the way round to home,” Stiles said.

“I certainly hope so,” Peter said a little smugly. He opened his eyes to find Stiles studying him. Peter rested his palm against Stiles’s cheek and brought his own head close until their foreheads rested together. “You are the best lover I've ever had,” Peter said, “because you are the one who really sees me.”

“Aw, you're just a sappy wolf.”

Peter growled at him, but from the cheeky grin he got in response, Stiles understood the threat came from a place of love. Peter collapsed on the bed next to him blinked up at the ceiling as his body slowly cooled.

Stiles phone started to ring, and Stiles groaned.

“Ignore it. If it's important, they’ll call back,” Peter said after checking his pack bond to Derek. As usual, Derek was a maelstrom of emotions—shame and fear and a deep strain of lust. Peter wondered if he was with Penny. She had a certain fondness for her alpha that went above a wolf’s loyalty. It was strange to have such a stable bond to his nephew again. He wondered what would've happened if he had been able to restrain himself long enough to form a bond with Laura instead of killing her. Could he found this earlier? Peter was not given to introspection, but there would always be a part of him that wondered whether there was a universe out there with a version of himself who had made fewer mistakes.

After a second, the phone started to ring again. Stiles groaned and did a weird sideways belly crawled to the foot of the bed before he groped for his jeans. He first pulled up Peter's pants before he threw those to one side and got his own on the second try. He pulled the phone out of the pocket, and connected the call. “What?”

“Stiles,” Derek said, his voice strained. Peter pulled Stiles back down next to him so he could curl around him.

“Let me talk to him,” Scott shouted from somewhere behind Derek. Peter groaned. Of course those two idiots would ruin this moment.

“Both of you hand it over,” Celeste's voice said sharply. Clearly she won whatever argument they were having because her voice came over the phone. “Stiles, we need to work on your control of the pack bond before you do that again.”

Stiles looked at Peter and frowned, but Peter could only shrug. “Do what?” Stiles asked, suspicion, heavy in his voice.

“Whatever you just did to make Derek come all over himself,” Scott shouted down the phone, and Peter felt a flare of humiliation from his nephew’s bond.

“Oh fuck,” Stiles whispered.


	5. Chapter 5

Stiles stood at the loft door and shifted nervously from foot to foot. What the hell did someone say after doing something as horrible as what he had done to Derek? The whole drive up to Beacon Hills, Stiles kept replaying the moment over in his head. 

Why hadn't he realized that he was projecting through the bond? Why did he have to drop all that lust on Derek? Not that anyone deserved to have lust like that dropped on them. Well, if Stiles had been whacking off in his bathroom and he dropped the lust on Peter, maybe that would've been fair because Peter at least was interested in being lusty. Stiles didn't even know whether Derek was sexual anymore. After all his bad luck, he might have become an avid asexual, which made it worse.

Derek slid the door open and Stiles’s brain froze. “Derek.” And that was the end of his ability to form words.

Scott pushed his way in front of Derek and swung the door the rest of the way open. “Are you seriously sleeping with Peter Hale?” he demanded.

Stiles rubbed a hand over his face. “Scotty, do you think maybe we can have this discussion later?”

“We can have it now,” Scott said firmly. “You do remember that he's a bad guy, right? He's tried to kill me multiple times. I never should've let him go to Virginia with you because now he has you all twisted around and thinking that you want this. You're not even gay. You like Lydia.”

Scott's rant actually kick started Stiles’s brain, and he focused on his friend. “Scott, Lydia and I dated for a month and it was an absolute disaster. Do you have any idea what happens when two pushy people try to occupy the same space? I can tell you, it isn't pretty.”

“Which is another great reason for you to not date Peter Hale,” Scott insisted.

Derek turned and headed into the loft, and Stiles realized he needed to get this back on track. “Scott, I love you brother, but you need to give me some time with Derek.”

Scott crossed his arms. “We need to talk about this.”

Celeste was coming down the stairs and she looked from Derek to Stiles and back again. Yep, that was the relationship that needed to get fixed. If it could be fixed. Stiles might've really fucked this up. “Scott, if you come to the house tomorrow, I promise to listen to every single one of your objections, but right now I really need to talk to Derek.”

Scott looked like he might continue to argue, but Celeste crossed the room and caught his arm in hers. “Maybe you can walk me down and sit with me until Stiles is ready to go. He's giving me a ride back to the house so that we can have a discussion about shielding power.” She pinned Stiles with a distinctly unhappy look. Yep. Stiles was getting yelled at, and he totally deserved it. He was actually looking forward to an hour of being verbally eviscerated because he deserved it that much. She pulled Scott towards the door, and Stiles stepped to the side to let them out. She really was one of Stiles's favorite people. Whatever Peter was paying her, you should double it.

Stiles waited until they left and then he slid the loft door closed before turning towards Derek. “First, I apologize. I apologize so much that I don't even have the words to apologize for how much I apologize. That was so wrong, and I am going to work hard with Celeste to make sure that I know how to limit my end of the bond at all times.”

“It's fine,” Derek said. But then again, this was Derek. This was the man who at one point had considered cutting off his own arm a viable solution. Stiles did not trust Derek and his self-assessed “fineness.”

“I am not going to pretend to know how to make this better, so you tell me what I need to do.” Stiles stayed right next to the door even though he desperately wanted to pat Derek on the arm or give him a hug or do something vaguely puppy pile-ish. Right now that was amazingly inappropriate.

“You don't need to do anything. I get it. You are a young witch and you lost control.”

“No. No no no. You do not get to excuse my bad behavior, because ignorance is not an excuse for shittiness. Do you want me to keep my distance for a while? Do you want to sever our bond?” It physically hurt Stiles to make that offer, but if Derek didn't trust the bond anymore, then Stiles needed to let it go.

“What?” Red bled into Stiles Derek's eyes and he took a step closer. “Why would you sever the bond?”

“If you need to break the bond so to feel safe from my manipulation, I won't be upset. I totally understand that I'm the one that went over the line here.”

“Does our bond mean so little to you that you could break it over a mistake?” Derek's eyes were fully red now, and Stiles saw the trap only after he had stepped in it.

“Of course not! I hurt just thinking of not having your bond.” Stiles rubbed his chest where he could feel Derek and Peter, twin rocks that anchored him. He wondered if they felt that way because they were the alphas or because Stiles had such a long and complicated relationship with both Hale men. He loved both of them, although in very different ways. If he were a nicer person and Derek were bisexual, Stiles totally would've made a play for him. But since neither were true, Derek was another brother to him. For an only child, Stiles had been blessed with some pretty awesome brothers. Annoying brothers, but as he understood it, that was par for the course.

Derek stared at him blankly for a second. “Do you really think I’m so fragile that this is going to traumatize me?”

“No?” Stiles cursed the uncertainty in his own voice, and Derek narrowed his eyes into an angry squint.

Stiles sighed. “I pushed those feelings off onto you without any warning, so you have a right to be pretty angry.”

“I'm not angry.”

Stiles frowned, not sure what to say now. He had planned this whole conversation in his head, and this is not how it had gone. Derek rolled his eyes and dropped down into an oversized leather seat, one of his more recent additions to the loft. “I had warning.”

Stiles frowned because that didn't make any sense.

“I felt something,” Derek said.

When silence felt on the room again, Stiles made a go-on gesture. “Something?”

“Pleasure,” Derek snapped. “I felt pleasure through the bond. And I could have shut it off when I felt that, but I thought you were enjoying a new video game or having a really great dinner. And the pleasure felt good. I enjoyed it.” The wrinkle between his eyebrows was Derek-speak for guilt.

Stiles edged into the living room far enough to sit on the arm of the nearest sofa. “The bond is supposed to feel good. You have a right to feel what you're feeling without me tromping in and making you feel too much.”

“The ending was unexpected,” Derek said with a grimace. “Next time I am definitely going to stop listening sooner.”

“There will definitely not be a next time because I am going to learn to control my end of the bond. Derek, I promise I will never do that again. The fact that I made you come…” Stiles shuttered. “No one should ever do that to someone else.”

Both Derek's eyebrows went up. “I'm sorry, but I was under the impression that you actually had been an adolescent boy at one point.”

“What?” Stiles felt like he had slipped into an alternate conversation, only he didn't catch the exit from their previous one.

“Pleasure taking over the body. I'm pretty sure every guy experiences that at least once. Are you going to tell me you never had to slip a textbook into your lap in class?”

Stiles’s brain finally caught up with Derek's train of thought. “Of course I have, but that's not the same.”

“No, sometimes that's worse,” Derek said. “In middle school we had this teacher who was the cheer coach and she wanted to show solidarity with her team. So every Friday she dressed up in the cheer uniform. She was a thirty-year-old woman with an hourglass figure wearing a miniskirt in a classroom full of thirteen-year-old boys. You can't tell me that wasn't intentional. What she did was worse than what you did because you slipped. What you did was the equivalent of me walking in and finding my parents having sex.” Derek grimaced. “Disturbing, especially considering Uncle Peter is involved, but I am far more concerned about your taste in men than I am what happened with the bond.”

“But—”

“But nothing, Stiles. Is it harder to shut your bond down than it is another wolf? Yes. It is as hard to shut your bond down as it was the bond I shared with my mother. That's the power of the pack witch has. But understand that when I was a teenager, I did shut down my bond with my mother. She pushed me so hard to get over Paige and pretend that everything was okay. Even in here.” Derek rubbed his chest. “And I know she just hoped that if I pretended to be okay, that one day I would wake up and I actually would be, but it was so hard to feel her disapproval every time I grieved. I couldn't take it anymore, not from Mom. So I closed off my bond with her. Stiles, you don't have more power in this relationship than an alpha mother has with her own child. So I can shut the bond down. I just didn't want to because it felt good. And that's on me.”

“No, do not do the patented Derek masochistic self-blame thing. I'm the one who knew what I was doing and knew that a happy ending was eminent. I should've realized that I had to control the pack bonds.”

Derek sighed and looked at him. “Are we going to keep fighting about who's to blame?”

“Maybe,” Stiles said. “You know Reddit lied to me. Reddit says that when you have family fights, everyone is supposed to blame everyone else.”

Derek shrugged. “We have a weird family.”

“That we do. I'm still going to feel guilty about this for a long time.”

“Don't,” Derek said, his voice dark. “I do not need you treating me like a victim. That pisses me off.”

Stiles bit his lower lip. Maybe Derek didn't want to feel like a victim, that didn't mean he didn't carry the scars of one. Even Spencer's team had seen that, and they were experts in victims. “Well, if you're entitled to your irrational guilt, then I'm entitled to mine. And I promise I will not abuse, flood or yank on the pack bonds again.” Stiles had been so enamored of having a little power that he had definitely lost sight of moral center. 

And really, that wasn't all that surprising. Stiles had meant what he told Derek; Scott was the moral one in this pack. Stiles was the one who totally would've helped Peter kill everyone if he had had the whole story. The only reason he had been on Scott’s side that first year was because he hadn't understood what those assholes had done. 

Before Stiles could blink, Derek was up and right in front of Stiles. He rested both his hands on Stiles’s shoulders and tightened until it was just short of painful. “Don't you dare,” he said.

Stiles stared up at Derek in shock, once again, completely lost about what conversation they were having. Usually Stiles was the one who confused other people, so this was a new and slightly frustrating experience for him. “Don't I dare do what? Abuse the bond? Totally. I will not.”

“Don't you dare pull back so much that you compromise our pack's ability to be a pack.”

“What?”

“The pack bonds,” Derek said. “Peter and I need you to be the one in the middle managing those pack bonds because neither of us has a lot of trust for the other.”

“Trust will come over time. Peter will eventually figure out that you won't abandon him again, and you'll figure out that if he is not fearful of being abandoned that he actually is...” Stiles paused. What was Peter? He wasn't a good guy, definitely not. But he also wasn't a bad guy. “He's loyal to family,” Stiles finished.

“Do you really think Peter and I would've ever reached an agreement in that kitchen if you hadn't been there, jerking on the pack bonds?”

“You are both adult men, so you could have…” Stiles hesitated again, and then he sagged. “You could have completely pissed each other off and ended up in a fist fight in Peter's new kitchen.”

“Exactly. If you are about to walk into a kanima den, I don't care what I told Peter about not using my superior strength against you. I'm going to jerk you back. If Peter and I are walking into an emotional danger zone, we need you to do the same, which does not give you permission to use that power in any other circumstance. If you start using the pack bond to make me happy or make me forget something, then I will do what I have to protect myself from you. Clear?” Derek leaned closer and his eyes grew red.

“Completely clear. Geez, I'm feeling guilty about accidentally manipulating you. Do you really think I would intentionally do it?”

“You intentionally manipulated Peter when you took him to Virginia.”

“Yeah, but that's because he was intentionally manipulating me to finagle permission to live in another territory.”

Derek snorted. “You two deserve each other.”

Stiles shrugged without disagreeing.

“I just wish that Scott hadn’t been over here when it all happened.” Derek retreated to the chair and sat, a sour expression on his face. Then his gave Stiles an evil smile. “Of course, that means you now have to deal with him knowing you’re sleeping with Peter. Have fun with that.”

“Asshole,” Stiles muttered, grateful that they could get back to their normal sniping. “Friends?” Stiles asked. 

Derek stared at him for a second before he caught Stiles up in a hug. “Family,” Derek said in response.


End file.
